The subject matter disclosed herein relates generally to weather data, and more particularly, to providing an aircraft with weather data during flight.
Accurate and consistent weather forecast data (such as, but not limited to, air pressure, winds, temperature aloft, and/or the like) is important to optimal flight operations, such as, but not limited to, Optimized Profile Descent (OPD) and the Optimized Profile Climb (OPC) of an aircraft. Currently, an Automatic Terminal Information Service (ATIS) and a Datalink ATIS (D-ATIS) from the Air Navigation Service Provider (ANSP) only broadcast a relatively small set of safety critical weather data, and only for the region of a particular airfield.
In some existing trials of an airline based weather uplink service, an Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) uplinks weather data. But, the data transmission has to be addressed to a specific individual flight (i.e., is not shared among multiple flights performing the same procedure), which imposes concerns in data link congestion as the service expands (e.g., as weather data is uplinked to more and more individual flights). One possible solution is to enhance D-ATIS to broadcast Flight Management System (FMS) climb and descent weather forecast data. For example, weather data may be broadcasted every minute or so (plus a valid time of the forecast data), the climb and descent forecast may be developed for specific arrival/departure gates and/or procedures, and/or the uplink weather could be calculated and may include information from previously downlinked aircraft meteorological reports. But using D-ATIS may raise concerns about competition and other legislative issues.